GPS

If you haven't heard of Waze, and you drive any sort of vehicle at all, then you should get on board. It's a unique 'social GPS' platform that allows drivers to share data about things like traffic congestion, speed traps, accidents, gas prices, and all sorts of other handy features that you simply don't get with your vintage Garmin or even your standard smartphone maps app.

Soon you'll be able to download your very own entirely Google-made version of Google Maps for iOS, this time not having Google on the back end of the Apple interface you've seen since the iPhone was launched. This new version will be released soon, with Google executive Jeff Huber speaking up this week on the subject with a simple "we look forward to providing amazing Google Maps experiences on iOS."

Facebook has a new feature that iOS and Android users can now start to take advantage of called Find Friends Nearby. Originally dubbed “Friendshake”, the feature allows you to see friends who are nearby, as well as potential friends, provided they’re also using Find Friends Nearby. The new feature is primarily aimed at those meeting people for the first time who want to quickly add details to Facebook.

Nike has launched Nike+ Running for Android, broadening smartphone support for its exercise monitoring app, and using the handset's GPS and accelerometer to record distance, pace and time. The new app offers mid-run audio feedback, telling you exactly how well you're doing every mile, and there's the ability to set up "PowerSongs" that you can trigger to give you a boost when you're flagging.

Windows Phone 8 will have Nokia Maps built-in, Microsoft has confirmed today at the Windows Phone Summit, with offline mapping and turn-by-turn directions. The unsurprising inclusion means that Bing Maps has been retired on Windows Phone, with Nokia's NAVTEQ subsidiary providing mapping data for the native Maps app on handsets, as well as for third-party developers with an open API.

This week the Google Maps team has shown off what they've been working on for some time with their brand new 3D enhancements to Google Earth, this part of "The Next Dimension" event they held earlier today. What we saw, and what you're about to see in video form, is how Google is hoping to keep the vast majority of the world spellbound by their technology with a level of realism we've not yet seen in a mapping program. Have a peek at what some are calling "The GTA of Maps" in the following clip.

This week at Google Maps' Next Dimension special event we got to see how powerful Google's world of mapping has really become with a full 3D vision of the world in a much more visually pleasing way than we've ever seen before. This talk started with a brief history of the 3D world, starting all the way back in 2003 when the 3D vision was nothing more than a whisper, while 2008 started with a bang with some "3D" images with flat, nearly-real images for arial views. This new version of Google Maps has airplanes capturing Oblique Images as captured from several sides as the plans overhead - this is just the first step.

This week the Google crew have released The Next Generation in Google Maps in a completely Offline experience. You'll soon be able to download an entire map of a city to your mobile device and continue to navigate regardless of if you are connected to your data network or not. Though Google Maps has always cashed a certain amount of information on your device online before you go offline, this version of the software helps Google build the global baseline for maps by allowing you to take their information wherever you go - even without your network.

This morning it's time to take a look at what Google has in store for us for the "Next Dimension" of Google Maps, live via YouTube! We'll be checking out the event all morning long and reporting back to you with all the big hits, but meanwhile feel free to check out the sweetness as it gets dropped by Google live and in-person!

This week Apple has been tipped to be releasing a non-Google maps iteration on their iPhone 5 once the device has been prepared for a third-quarter announcement, this mapping technology bringing "next-level" realness and fabulous technological breakthroughs galore. What you're about to see is a hands-on video from NetBookNews which shows off the technology that has been created by C3 Technologies, a company that Apple purchased back in 2011. What we can expect from Apple in the very near future is a set of mapping apps that utilize the technology you see in this video without hesitation and on a giant scale.